Starbucks mispronunciation and snobbery

Jul 1, 2007

You know the presumably Starbucks-born trend of naming drink sizes
something that not only makes them sound bigger than they are (we’ve
been doing that in the US for years—-a “small” is called a “tall”) but
also makes them sound more snooty and pretentious? It’s not a medium
drink; it’s a “grande”. Etc. I’m sad to find myself numbing to it.
Whenever I used to go to Starbucks, I would forcefully use the English
term to describe the size of the drink I wanted. It would go something
like this: “I’d like a small coffee, please.” They would repeat back to
me, “A tall coffee.”

I think it’s Starbucks policy to snootily correct the customers when
they use the “wrong” word for a size. For “normal” people who haven’t
either been dulled to the silly labels or just aren’t the Starbucks
type, it’s kind of shocking the first time or two. You feel like you’re
being very subtly scolded.

You might say that creating a little language around your product is a
good thing. I’m sure it’s all part of the branding process, and I’m sure
that for the legions of Starbucks faithful, it actually creates a
tribe-like feeling of inclusion. But it still puts me off.

Even as I grow numb to this corporate inanity, though, there’s one
vulture eyed fact that gets under my skin every time I visit a
Starbucks. While Starbucks tries to put on a classy air, they’re letting
a mispronunciation epidemic run rampant through their employee
population.

Venti != VEN-TAY

As I steam over this, waiting for my coffee, I sometimes think to
myself: Do we know of any other professions in which the providers of a
service behave with snobbish disdain toward their customers while most
of them are actually quite ignorant about the very things they are
snobbish about?